Carl Henry’s 9 Criteria That Make an Excellent Christian University

I just wrote a short piece about the great theologian Carl F. H. Henry for Southern Seminary’s “Towers,” the newspaper. In the piece, I gave readers a little preview of the material found in my dissertation, which details at great length Henry’s quest for a great Christian university.

Here’s a little tease from the essay. If you’re in Christian higher education as I am, or if you enjoy thinking about what Christian colleges and universities could be, you might enjoy this material:

Henry pursued this exciting idea for several years, convening meetings with high-level evangelical statesmen and pinging in with potential donors to raise support for the project. In the midst of his teaching at Fuller Theological Seminary (1947-56), his founding editorship of Christianity Today (1956-68) and his writing of seminal books like The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947), Henry thought constantly about what the “Christian Harvard” could be. He penned his foundational ideas in a furiously typed letter to Graham. The school had to orient itself in the “highest levels” to “the rich context of the Bible.” Following this first move, the institution had to meet numerous criteria.

By the way, I’ll be speaking on Henry no less than three times this fall: first at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School at a one-day conference on Henry on October 11, 2013 (with Greg Thornbury and friends), and twice at the Evangelical Theological Society in Baltimore from November 19-22, 2013. Join me!